Lockout isn't high art, but it's ridiculous fun.

I'm Still Here does leave us with one big question mark: What will Phoenix do next? How will he top such a flamboyant caper?

The dismal reality is that this romantic drama is a disaster, a dour "When Harry Meets Sally" that tries to jerk tears out of the story of a man and a woman who go from friends to lovers.

Pierce delivers everything the role requires except serious menace, while the less-seasoned Crawford improves as his handsome face bares more of the evening's scars.

Columbus knows his way around this kind of material even if some of the special effects look like they came from Deep Discount. The gods are well-rendered, but nothing special. Still for the Potter crowd, Percy provides a nice diversion until the real thing comes along.

The resulting distillation is brisk, light and engaging with none of the cheap shots that usually accompany any discussion of ventriloquism. If anything, Goffman is too gentle, refusing to pursue his charges into their darker corners.

Dancing lacks probing interviews to highlight the tremendous cultural change, but Sy remains an engaging focus point and there are numerous performance sequences that ably demonstrate his growing accomplishments.

An odd little film that aims only to please itself.

Bad Teacher is a worthy successor to the benchmark black comedy "Bad Santa" (without being at all the same).

This rags-to-sequins tale may be schmaltzy in its sincerity, but 'tis the season. Glitter is optional, but certainly encouraged.

If "Harold and Maude" hadn't already gotten there 40 years ago, this quirky but engaging trifle might seem refreshingly original.

Lovers of deliberate kitsch should seek it out and make it a part of all celebrations of bad taste. Lovers of “The Godfather” films and new age mafia types like the “Sopranos” have always been into bad taste and so won’t get this.

Ferrera proves herself to be just as talented in dramatic roles.

The real star of the film, however, is Shapiro who, despite treading on marginally derivative subject matter, demonstrates a solid sense of style and a refreshingly delicate hand with actors.

No surprises or major laughs here, but as far as Sandler family fare goes, it's inoffensive enough.

Blending a perfect brew of classic '80s songs, big laughs and rockin' performances, director Adam Shankman manages to make this film adaptation of the hit Broadway jukebox musical a red hot summer blast for people who grew up with glam metal - or just can't escape it on the radio.

It's a magical film in the vein of E.T. where an otherworldly event changes a family forever.

This revved-up movie version offers a perfect mix of non-stop thrills and clever dialogue, mixed with an engagingly light touch. Nobody is taking anything too seriously here, and that's the fun of it.

The hijinx get deflating, yet the tension and genuine sense of investigation keep you involved.

Such a story is made to be colored in jumbo crayon, and at first you might long for a more nuanced approach, but this film was produced in the 1940's serial style that's made Lucas Films enormous.

Mercy can be described as a moody picture that traffics in variations of only one mood or sentiment: self-pity.

Ultimately an inspiring, stirring and unforgettable human drama in the face of a horrifying war. It is highly recommended.

This is purely warm, wonderful, wise and hilarious family entertainment that is fantastic movie fun for everyone.

It's an emotional powerhouse of a film, an unforgettable and rewarding motion picture experience.

Spectacle and spectacular are often confused for one another in stories of epic adventure, but Immortals is the rare film where they are one and the same.

Strictly for kids, but pure movie fun nonetheless,

Big and brash with a fantasia of battles and chases thrown in to keep the young ones enthralled for its nearly two-hour running time.

The mix of groin injury and over-explanation could totally reach 9-year-olds and a greying Atkinson is still relentlessly lovable.

Sometimes hilarious, occasionally outrageous and terribly uneven.

Even Reese Witherspoon, whose adorable scrunch-face projects the romantic travails of lovelorn women everywhere, looks unsure of herself.

Trachinger clearly has the wit and the talent to do thought-provoking and challenging work. All she needs is a producer with similar aspirations, and she'll be well on her way toward fully achieving the promise on display here.

The film's strength isn't its shock tactics - it's the rapid-fire, party montage editing that finds a million natural ways to put mundane actions and moments up against each other for comic effect.

Void of subtlety and the gritty realism that's trademark for many Sundance dramas, Another Happy Day, from Mandalay Vision, may fail to win over many critics due to its histrionic storytelling.

Stylish, globe hopping, action-packed comedy that starts at full blast and never lets up.

Reiner has crafted the perfect summer film in The Magic Of Belle Isle. No, not one with a lot of noise and battles and comic book heroes, but rather a wonderfully laid back family story set around a gorgeous lake, about the everyday problems of real people from 7 to 70.

This is a beautifully crafted and special movie to cherish, one likely to stay with you long after most of the so-called summer blockbusters have faded into memory.

Paco Plaza turns his [REC] franchise on its rotting head with [REC]3: Genesis, switching up the series' blistering first-person-perspective terror for a more conventional, jokey and-much to the film's detriment-self-conscious approach.

If Peckinpah's original was a rotten plank spiked with rusty nails, Rod Lurie's redo is something closer to a nicely carved Louisville Slugger.

What helps salvage the film (much to the surprise of director and co-writer Lussenhop and his fellow writers Peter Allen, Gabriel Casseus and Avery Duff) are the unintentional laughs generated by the film's outrageous gun battles, childish dialogue and an action chase featuring Brown that seems to go on forever.

The script is intermittently literate and frequently funny, the young cast (headed by Radnor) is highly appealing.

Its tone is pleasant and its humor, charming.

Like "The Blind Side," this is an inspiring and compelling true story. Harrison Ford is at the top of his game in this remarkable film.

This archly self-aware coming-of-age tale fizzles, as the targeted Latino audience is upstaged by a culture more firmly rooted in the film's soggy Seattle setting.

It's a great (if middle-of-the-road) family comedy to seek out.

While most action films fall apart because they succumb to stupidity, Colombiana suffers most because it tries to be too smart.

Sex and abortion are the main topics of this installment, which tips between dullness and total camp.

So satisfying and surprisingly fun.

With an incredible performance by young Natasha Calls and surprisingly effect direction by Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch) you'll be surprised how this horror gets you just when you think you're safe.

This is the perfect summer movie and perhaps the best Pirates of them all.

This is a curio that demands to be seen.

Taken 2 is 91 minutes of "See Neeson kill-kill, Neeson kill!"

Back for a third go-around, the Step Up franchise is still as light on story as it is on its feet, but audiences looking to get a cinematic workout from the high-stepping action served up here could do a lot worse.

Wilson is nicely restrained as a loving husband caught in a middle-aged crisis, while Sudeikis makes a great foil as a guy in over his head.

Stone embarrasses himself by backing the wrong horse and then making a weak case for him.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt dominates this slight, worth-a-watch dramedy.

Country Strong is a charmer that makes you forgive all of its false notes simply because the talent plays them with conviction.

A who's who of classic action stars light up the screen for pure combustible entertainment in Sly Stallone's The Expendables, a sort of "Dirty Dozen" meets "Inglourious Basterds"--and then some.

Genre movies like The Warrior's Way are all about pleasing core fan boys. While the film claims dazzling visuals, Lee fails to deliver the type of never-before-seen martial arts fights fans demand.

In 1994, 16-year-old surfer Jay Moriarity braved the biggest waves ever seen off the coast of Northern California. His biopic, Chasing Mavericks, gets that fact right but changes everything else about his life in order to bowl audiences over in a saccharine tsunami.

A well-meaning production that consistently fails to deliver on even the most basic of cinematic expectations, all while covering up stunning ineptitude with bloated song-and-dance numbers.

Almost as bad as we want it to be, which is to say, it straddles the line between campy and legit without winning over either audience.

At 74 tough and tragic minutes, though, Kimjongilia is not destined for monetary glory. The waiting arms of public television are the more likely destination.

The big event plays in the same cartoonish key as the rest of the film.

The result is a rather revealing film, not only about Sara and the choices she's made, but about the industry itself, with its contrasting pleasures and pressures.

Watching Driver peel rubber proves B grade action movies are a welcome diversion in the era of CGI blockbusters. If only Faster didn't fizzle each time Johnson put down his gun.

It's full of really subtle dichotomies and internal conflicts, but what makes Julius' story seem authentic is how totally incongruous it feels.

Likely to disappoint both literary aficionados and action-thriller fans, the film neither captures the creepy atmospheres of Poe's influential writing nor works on its own.

The price for an invite to Stu's (Ed Helms) Thai nuptials is fewer laughs and an air of menace and mystery that won't endear Part II to escapist-hungry audiences.

The look is appealing, but the dark third act and heavy themes may alienate family audiences.

The Losers not only looks like a low rent, buttoned-down version of The A-Team, but it also resembles a hybrid of other flicks like "Mission: Impossible" and "Inglourious Basterds."

There are a sufficient number of jolts thanks to quick edits and sound effects, plus the script's efficient structure.

We all have to make jokes around the water cooler, and if enough people bother to see Killer Elite, its silly nonsense could make for a great comedy routine by Greg from IT.

Fischer and Messina may make a cute pair, but amidst such contrivances, they're powerless to make this RomCom seem like anything more than a creaky retread of obvious indie clichés.

Silly and not nearly scary enough, this does not rank as grade-A Romero, but the story unfolds efficiently and economically and it provides plenty of laughs.

Step Up Revolution has again found some of the most kinetic talents in the country.

This film is only for those with strong constitutions and a penchant for painstaking details.

Compact if not cohesive, this is an Age of Aquarius-meets-"Mamma Mia"! distillation of The Tempest.

The Vow proves that love can't conquer bad writing.

What makes Forte so funny is that he stalks through the flick cocksure and utterly deadpan.

Easygoing effort at times feels over-baked and too full of Perry’s now-trademarked melodramatics, but nevertheless should hit squarely at the target audience of the older African-American women that can’t seem to get enough of what this director dishes out.

Hardcore genre fans will likely be quite disappointed to find a film that trades vision and originality for something best described as bland and inoffensive.

It's easy to get depressed by much of the behavior depicted in Phillip the Fossil, yet the talents behind the picture are a cause for optimism. The last thing they appear to be is hypocritical.

Benicio Del Toro looks even more like Lon Chaney Sr. than Chaney Jr. did, and he’s a far better actor than the previous Wolf Man.

As flat as the Carolina coastal region in which it’s set, Dear John features two gorgeous young actors playing denuded characters in search of more narrative garb.

Stolidly maudlin, this enervating sub-middlebrow pic is doomed to well-deserved commercial obscurity.

Tyler Perry has finally achieved an odd kind of equality that heretofore eluded him: he's now just as mediocre and middle of the road as any other reliable hitmaker in Hollywood.

The exploitation title may not do it any favors, but this biopic based on the incredible life journey of Sam Childers is gripping, inspirational and well told.

(Holmes) fails to deliver requisite laughs to keep the comedy afloat.

On the surface Monte Carlo is charming, oddly down-home wish-fulfillment, but it's riddled with unexplored class issues and generic filmmaking.

In a brief supporting role Meg Ryan is also fine along with Brian F. O’Byrne and Will Patton. Shannon Kane is memorable as the prostitute Gere hooks up with.

This elegant weepie offers plenty for fans of melodrama, character-driven stories and period pieces.

There's plenty of atmosphere and awe, even if it's in the service of a story that starts rote and finds its sea legs only when half the divers have sunk their bones to Davy Jones.

Won't Back Down makes grand drama of bureaucracy, positioning Gyllenhaal as the knight slaying 400 pages of government paperwork in order to wrest control of her daughter's elementary school. It's rousing - if not thrilling - stuff.

Casting is almost uniformly first rate with Cox, Purefoy and the always brilliant Giamatti providing noteworthy standouts.

If this film is nothing else (and it may be nothing else) it's funny and (ironically) fundamentally true. What certainly isn't true is what it purports to be, which is a legitimate course of study that analyzes the historic, international, socio-cultural, economic and psychological relationships between individuals, governments and corporations through the prism of physics and what has been loosely called metaphysics.

If so inclined for a breezy, violent time-waster audiences could do worse. Travolta sadly can do so much better.

This movie is often hysterical, and sometime very sweet.

It's true epic filmmaking that's toppled over its tipping point: after the 20th explosion and 64th wall of shattering glass, its enormity undermines its impact.